Emanuela Garofalo

Palazzo Corvaja occupies a primary position in the town of Taormina; looking out on what is now Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, it concludes the route traced out inside the urban nucleus by the main road axis, at the opposite extremity from the cathedral dedicated to San Nicolò and surrounded by the vestiges of the Roman town. The name Corvaja refers to one of the families that alternated in possession of the abode in the 16th century. The building is made up of three connected parts of different heights. A similar arrangement was long interpreted as indicating stratification linked to at least three distinct construction phases, causing the foundation of the first nucleus, identified in the tower, to be dated to the 11th century and to the presence of the Arabs on the island. Actually today this reading does not appear very reliable, as the whole building was probably done at the height of the fifteenth century. The building has an inner courtyard with an open flight of stairs that ends with a small gallery surrounded on three sides by slabs in Syracuse stone, like a parapet, embossed with scenes on biblical subjects (Adam and Eve). The solution of a staircase on the outside of the buildings at one of the sides of the courtyard also characterizes other important fifteenth-century residential buildings in Sicily, connecting up with the typology established by residences of magnates built in the same period in the Iberian east. From the arrival gallery entrance to the piano nobile is through a small portal with a keel arch, particularly pointed; aligned with it, shifted to the right with respect to the gallery, there is inserted a mullioned window with little ogival arches. Regarding distribution inside, particular mention must be made, on the piano nobile to the left of the main portal, of a saloon illuminated by four mullioned windows, regularly placed along the front that looks out on the plaza. Above them there are three little windows with round arches, to which, nevertheless, there does not correspond any attic. Lastly, on the south front of the same block a double-mullioned window is present, with characteristics analogous to those of the mullioned windows (slender mullions dividing the aperture space, use of white stone for the architraves and the arches above, keel frame, very pointed above the arches).